CVE-2024-43887 net/tcp: Disable TCP-AO static key after RCU grace period

Medium 4.7 Published Updated

A race condition in Linux kernel TCP-AO static key handling can cause a kernel bug and system crash during socket destruction.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Any signed-in user
Attackable
Local or same network only
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is CVE-2024-43887?

CVE-2024-43887 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 26 Aug 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net/tcp: Disable TCP-AO static key after RCU grace period

The lifetime of TCP-AO static_key is the same as the last tcp_ao_info. On the socket destruction tcp_ao_info ceases to be with RCU grace period, while tcp-ao static branch is currently deferred destructed. The static key definition is : DEFINE_STATIC_KEY_DEFERRED_FALSE(tcp_ao_needed, HZ);

which means that if RCU grace period is delayed by more than a second and tcp_ao_needed is in the process of disablement, other CPUs may yet see tcp_ao_info which atent dead, but soon-to-be. And that breaks the assumption of static_key_fast_inc_not_disabled().

See the comment near the definition: > * The caller must make sure that the static key can't get disabled while > * in this function. It doesn't patch jump labels, only adds a user to > * an already enabled static key.

Originally it was introduced in commit eb8c507296f6 ("jump_label: Prevent key->enabled int overflow"), which is needed for the atomic contexts, one of which would be the creation of a full socket from a request socket. In that atomic context, it's known by the presence of the key (md5/ao) that the static branch is already enabled. So, the ref counter for that static branch is just incremented instead of holding the proper mutex. static_key_fast_inc_not_disabled() is just a helper for such usage case. But it must not be used if the static branch could get disabled in parallel as it's not protected by jump_label_mutex and as a result, races with jump_label_update() implementation details.

Happened on netdev test-bot[1], so not a theoretical issue:

[] jump_label: Fatal kernel bug, unexpected op at tcp_inbound_hash+0x1a7/0x870 [ffffffffa8c4e9b7] (eb 50 0f 1f 44 != 66 90 0f 1f 00)) size:2 type:1 [] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [] kernel BUG at arch/x86/kernel/jump_label.c:73! [] Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN NOPTI [] CPU: 3 PID: 243 Comm: kworker/3:3 Not tainted 6.10.0-virtme #1 [] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.3-0-ga6ed6b701f0a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [] Workqueue: events jump_label_update_timeout [] RIP: 0010:__jump_label_patch+0x2f6/0x350 ... [] Call Trace: [] <TASK> [] arch_jump_label_transform_queue+0x6c/0x110 [] __jump_label_update+0xef/0x350 [] __static_key_slow_dec_cpuslocked.part.0+0x3c/0x60 [] jump_label_update_timeout+0x2c/0x40 [] process_one_work+0xe3b/0x1670 [] worker_thread+0x587/0xce0 [] kthread+0x28a/0x350 [] ret_from_fork+0x31/0x70 [] ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 [] </TASK> [] Modules linked in: veth [] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- [] RIP: 0010:__jump_label_patch+0x2f6/0x350

[1]: https://netdev-3.bots.linux.dev/vmksft-tcp-ao-dbg/results/696681/5-connect-deny-ipv6/stderr

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-43887?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-43887?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2024-43887 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-43887 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2024-43887, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-43887, GHSA-7566-65rj-g85x, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-43887.

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